Ephesians 1

It’s hard to greet people with a blessing without sounding ostentatiously pious.

Is there anything more embarrassing than believing in a three-story universe?

Christ has brought the entire cosmos into submission? Frankly, it doesn’t look that way.

If we can be said to have them, we should at least want them to be opened.

Ephesians could be a template for a sermon in the style of a pastoral letter.

We hope and pray that God will meet us, even if God feels absent to us.

We tend to think biology matters, and matters very much—except when we don’t.

God "has put all things under his feet." This includes the NFL.

On Ascension Day, with the readings from Luke and Acts in danger of being embalmed by archaism, the reading from Ephesians is a gift.

God has put "all things under his feet." Shouldn't we be worried about such a portrayal of absolute power? 

The preacher faces several challenges in these Ascension texts. How can we present Jesus’ departure from the earth as an occasion for not sorrow but celebration? How to translate the kingship and hierarchical language into imagery that speaks to a world no longer governed by kings and monarchs?

Feminist biblical scholars note a third challenge: How can we counter Luke-Acts' use of the Ascension to exert a degree of social control?

National Organization for Marriage board chair John C. Eastman recently called adoption a “second-best option” for children. He was speaking to the Associated Press about Chief Justice John Robert’s position on the rights of same-sex couples: “Certainly adoption in families headed, like Chief Roberts’ family is, by a heterosexual couple, is by far the second-best option.”

The comment reveals less about adoptive families than about Eastman’s willingness to jettison religious tradition for political gain.

The one who puts all things under his feet is doing something in the world.

Dhini didn’t ask to be adopted. That's the way grace works.

God's "consuming fire" is the fire of holy love. It doesn't await sinners in the future; it burns up sin itself.

The other day I was sitting in a coffee shop and couldn’t help overhearing an interesting and intense debate on the other side of the room. An older gentleman was trying his best to aid an inquisitive college student who had some hard-hitting questions. She asked about scripture, about authority and about the church. One question kept popping up: “What is the difference between truth for you, truth for me and truth with a capital T?”

As long as the ascension is in any way related to upward movement (like an elevator going to the clouds), I am and will continue to be unmoved. The vertical directional imagery just doesn’t do it for me. I am not even moved to argue about whether or not “it” happened.